re: #11 Obdicut

So, striking, to you, is a tactic that ‘cows’.

What mechanism do you think that a union could actually use, then?

Well the incentive structure that guides union leadership is often not directly aligned with the best interests of the members. Take, for example, the reason negotiation between the union representing uniformed police in Newark and Cory Booker’s administration. The city wanted to keep more cops working which would a) make the city safer, b) reduce the workload for each individual police officer, and c) keep more of the current police force employed. To do that would require some relatively small roll backs that would be spread pretty widely, and those roll backs were only occurring after every other department in the city. The union leadership said no. The administration said the only other alternative was to let go 145 officers which would have the affect of a, b, and c, above. The city asked the union to put it to a vote of their members and the union leadership refused.

Now why would they not let their own members vote? Self preservation. If the union leaders agree to any sort of roll back then they know they may face a challenger in the future who will say they hurt the members. However if they let 145 officers get fired they know that those officers will leave the union either because they are unemployed and can’t pay the dues or they find work in another jurisdiction and find another union. Thus they won’t be around anymore to vote the leaders out.

You see this dynamic repeated in everything from autoworkers to teachers. There have been a number of academic articles that look at the misaligned incentives of union leadership. It’s unfortunate because, just like politicians, they make short term political survival maneuvers rather than long-term general welfare maneuvers.